[INTERVIEW] Government role in leading 'Big Data' industry

South Korea needs active government support and investment in developing human resources in the Big Data industry, a leading expert said, describing data as "new oil" in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Data is important because it can be analyzed macroscopically on a microscopic basis. "In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, data is the same as new oil, but its value is much bigger," said Cha Sang-kyun, director of Seoul National University's Big Data Institute.

Only summarized data used to be selected and kept due to high cost in archiving, but summarized information has limitations in analysis because of the hidden intention and viewpoint of people who archived, but the universal use of cloud computing technology made it possible to retain all data for analysis from every angle and get more accurate results, he said.

Cha stressed that a virtuous circle structure of data and artificial intelligence (AI) should be created, citing their indispensable relationship. "Amazon has a cloud infrastructure and AI like Alexa," he said.

The development of human resources is more urgent than anything else to make good use of big data, he said. "Educating people to innovate can revolutionize the system so that we can become an innovative nation."

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, companies must overcome the dilemma with innovation that rationalizes existing businesses along with human transformation but fails to follow the changes, Cha said. "We need to create a new bowl because it is difficult to innovate in the existing bowl," he said, calling for active government support.

"If we develop new talents in the field of data science, such as Big Data and AI, we will be able to use them in all industries," he said.

Cha urged the government to take the lead in integrating and utilizing data because South Korea has a relatively well-established public data source. "In the big data industry, we still have hope and we have three or four years left," he said. "If we can increase an investment in human resources in this time and cultivate future talents, we have a chance."

A survey by Insight Plus, a research company, showed that South Korea's big data market grew 31.1 percent on-year to 308 million US dollars in 2016, led by government investment estimated at 99.8 billion won (89 million US dollars).